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Ray sparks Highland Park girls past Junciton City

JUNCTION CITY — In a game muddied up with fouls and turnovers, Highland Park’s Sha’Von Ray sparked the Scots at the right time, leading them to a 50-44 road win against Junction City.

“It was a big win,” Highland Park coach Mike Calhoun said. “It wasn’t pretty (18 turnovers), but I tell you what, we’ll take it. We showed a lot of good character and a lot of changes. That was a tough win, but it was a good win.

“I loved it all the way around from our young girls cheering us on. The whole thing was big.”

The Blue Jays appeared to be taking control in the third quarter after a 10-5 run put them up 32-27. Then the Scots turned the tables with a 15-2 run into the fourth quarter to seize control of the game.

“I think we just kind of slowed down a little bit and started taking advantage of openings,” said Calhoun, whose team outscored the Blue Jays 21-12 in the fourth quarter. “We started attacking more. Sha’Von knocked down a couple of big threes.”

Ray took three charges during that run and scored 11 of her 17 points in the fourth quarter, leading the Scots to their second straight victory.

“She was humongous, she was humongous,” Calhoun said, adding Ray hadn’t practiced the past three days because of a minor concussion. “She came in and took those three charges, that was just big. She was just showing everybody the winning sacrifices and all the good stuff you have to have to win.”

The two teams combined for 65 fouls and 90 free throws. The Scots converted 27 of their 50 charity attempts, while the Blue Jays hit 20 of 40 from the free-throw line.

Kyra Tucker added 10 points for the Scots, going 4 of 6 from the line.

“With the referees calling it tight, you’ve got to take advantage of that,” Calhoun said. “We started taking advantage of that. (Free throws) were huge.”